Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Art Clokey's 90th Birthday

Today [on 12 October, 2011] is the 90th Birthday of the pioneer in the popularization of stop motion clay animation, Arthur Art Clokey. Google has put a Google Doodle on it’s HomePage in the memory of the artist, one of the best animated Google Doodle ever by Doodle Team. Details and the Art Clokey Google Doodle’s Video after the jump.

The animated interactive Google Doodle features the characters created by Art Clokey including the very famous “Gumby and Pokey“. When you open the Google.com page the 4th green character waves you his hand and starts pointing towards the other clay balls.
When you click on a clay ball it converts into a clay character and starts doing its animations. Click on each of the ball to play with the colorful artistic Doodle.

These are the very famous Clokey’s characters, Gumby with his horse Pokey.

Below is the video of Google Doodle Art Clokey.

Arthur "Art" Clokey (October 12, 1921 - January 8, 2010) was a pioneer in the popularization of stop motion clay animation, beginning in 1955 with a film experiment called Gumbasia, influenced by his professor, Slavko Vorkapich, at the University of Southern California.

From the Gumbasia project, Art Clokey and his wife Ruth invented Gumby. Since then Gumby and his horse Pokey have been a familiar presence on television, appearing in several series beginning with the Howdy Doody Show and later The Adventures of Gumby. The characters enjoyed a renewal of interest in the 1980s when American actor and comedian Eddie Murphy parodied Gumby in a skit on Saturday Night Live. In the 1990s Gumby: The Movie was released, sparking even more interest.

Clokey's second most famous production is the duo of Davey and Goliath, funded by the Lutheran Church in America. In honor for his contribution to clay animation and for celebrating his 90th birthday anniversary, Google doodle of October 12, 2011, was based on his animated clay characters.

Art Clokey died in his sleep on January 8, 2010, at age 88, at his home in Los Osos, California after suffering from a recurrent bladder infection.